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Every moment that Yelena finds herself looking at Valentina's face, she finds herself this much closer to punching it so hard that she physically feels the shattering of the nasal bone beneath her fist.
But she doesn't.
She can't.
Because Bob seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, and Valentina may be the only one who can help them find him.
That's not to say she plans to play nice. She plans to refrain from using violence if she doesn’t need to, but she certainly isn't going to be nice about this. She doesn’t care what happens to Valentina. She just wants Bob back, safe and sound by her side where he belongs.
So when Bucky moves to start a fight, she just lets it happen. If Valentina thinks she can piss off an ex-assassin supersoldier congressman without repercussions, she's in for the shock of her life.
… Or not?
Bucky reaches for her neck, but just before he can touch her, his hand stops. It starts to vibrate, certainly not of Bucky's own will, unable to move closer as though held back by some sort of invisible force.
Valentina is so obviously unbothered – smug, even, when she sees the uncertainty flash across Bucky's face. With the hint of a smirk, she says, “I'm not alone.”
And then…
“Robert?”
Yelena looks around the room, eyes frantically searching for any sign of that familiar face. He's here, right? That's what she's saying. Bob is here. Is he okay? Did she hurt him? She needs to know. She won't rest until she does.
That's when she sees him.
She can't believe her eyes.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
He looks like a whole new person as he descends the stairs to join them. His hair, a warm blond now, is slicked back, all of its usual gorgeously messy curl gone. His cute little scrubs have been replaced with a bright yellow suit of a sort, almost cliché in its superhero appearance, but he doesn’t hold himself to the standard one would think it sets. His posture is still slouched; his eyes are still shifty; there’s no confidence to his movements.
That's her Bob. She can still see him under there. So what the hell happened to him?
When he joins them on the floor, he stands by Valentina's side, not with his friends. When he looks at her, he does so like a puppy, desperate for her praise. It only pisses Yelena off more – though not at him. She’d never be pissed at him. It’s Valentina who deserves her ire; Valentina, and no one else.
“It is my great honor,” Valentina says, smirking, far too pleased with herself, “to present to you, the Sentry.”
Bob looks at them, his eyes scanning the faces before him, and though he wears that same awkward, friendly smile he's worn since the beginning, since they'd first met, but this time, but his discomfort feels more tangible now. It's so incredibly obvious that he's nothing more than a child playing dress-up, wearing a superhero outfit when he has no business trying to live up to that mantle. He knows it as well as they do.
He gives them a friendly nod. “Hi, guys.”
Valentina goes off on a rant about how wonderful he is, how he's this amazing new superhero, stronger than all of the Avengers rolled into one. Yelena hardly hears it. She can't stop looking at Bob. He looks so uncomfortable. He looks like he doesn’t want to be here at all. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that means she can talk some sense into him. Maybe that means she can get him out of here.
But that subtle look of pride he wears while Valentina praises him warns her it may not be that easy.
“Okay,” Bucky says, “I'll bite. What's the plan?”
“Haven't you figured it out yet, Bucky?” Valentina shakes her head condescendingly. “Well, at least you're kinda cute.”
Alexei speaks up then. “You’re not going to hurt people.” And he's right: they're not going to let her. Whatever bullshit plan she's come up with, they're going to put a stop to it before anyone gets hurt – or worse.
“Oh, no,” Valenina says sarcastically. “I'm not gonna hurt people. I'm going to hurt you.”
Yelena looks over at Bob. He looks… uncomfortable – more so than he was before she said it, which isn't a small feat. He's looking around, at the walls and the windows and the floor and anywhere but at them. He knows this is wrong. She's almost sure of it. But he does nothing about it.
Valentina drones on and on about her plan, as condescending as ever with every word that leaves her mouth, and Bob does nothing. He doesn’t want to be her weapon. At the very least, he doesn't want to hurt them. But he won't say it aloud. He won't tell her he doesn't want to do this, even when it's written so clearly on his face. And she's so wrapped up in her narcissism that she doesn't even seem to notice.
“Sentry,” Valentina says – the first she's really spoken to him instead of about him, Yelena notices – “your first mission is to take these criminals out.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her teammates (she hates to call them that; they are not a team) ready themselves for a fight. She just shakes her head, more to herself than anyone else. This doesn’t have to end like that. They can all walk out of here alive. They can all walk out of here together.
Bob's gaze flickers between each of them. When he speaks, his voice shakes, betraying that confidence he's trying so poorly to portray. “I don't want to hurt you guys. What if you just surrender?”
“You don't want to do this, Bobby,” Walker says, and he speaks like he wants a fight; like he wants Bob to make the wrong choice so he can get his kicks in. The condescension in his voice makes it clear.
Bob cocks his head to the side, chin held a bit higher now, a bit more sure of himself, and it seems Walker may be getting his unspoken wish after all. “You can call me the Sentry.”
“Please, don't do this,” Yelena says, and she tries to keep her voice level, but she can feel her anxiety creeping up on her. “You do not need to listen to her.”
Valentina cuts in before her words can do her any favors. “Robert, they don't think you’re good enough.” She's patronizing about it, not just towards Yelena but to Bob, too.
“That's not true,” Yelena says quickly. “Remember? You can trust me. I know you.” He has to remember that. Valentina has a lot of power, but even she can't erase what they had.
But Bob shakes his head. “I don't think that you do.”
Or maybe she can.
It's as though her heart physically shatters in her chest. They were supposed to be friends. He was her person. He was the one she clung to in the Vault – out of curiosity? Out of intrigue? Because she knew even then that he was special? She can't say – and he chose her, too. They were a team, in a way the whole lot of them never were.
She opened up to him. That's not something she does, with anyone. But she did it with him. And it means nothing.
“Enough talking!” Alexei yells, and just the sound of his voice, especially but not exclusively in this context, tells her this is not going to go well. “Nobody messes with the West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts!”
Alexei goes in for a hit, charging toward him like a bull to its fallen rider. Before Yelena can even think to move, to speak, Bob shoves him away, and Alexei goes flying into the wall behind them. It crumbles on the impact.
Bucky draws his guns. Walker readies his shield. Ava prepares to charge.
It's going to be a bloodbath.
“No!” Yelena yells, throwing herself between them, straight into Bucky's line of fire. “No, no, no, no, no!” This isn't going to help them! It's not going to hurt Bob, and it's not going to help him! It's useless! It's just going to piss everyone off more!
Bucky has enough sense not to shoot when Yelena stands in his path, but it does nothing to deter Walker from throwing his shield. Bob catches it with ease and sends it right back at him, with even more force than it had been thrown. Ava materializes in front of him, kicking and punching like that's going to do anything, and it only takes Walker a moment to join her.
“Wait!” Yelena yells. She runs up, ready to pry them away, to beg them to stop if she has to. She tries to put herself in between them, spitting out a breathless, “Stop! No–”
Bob flings them all away with the flick of his hand, and she hits the ground hard. The impact sends a shockwave of pain through her body, and she finds her knees and forearms throbbing. She groans, squeezing her eyes shut as she forces herself to deal with this, to keep going like nothing happened because she's fine. Right now, with everything that’s going on, she’s fine. She has to be fine. Until they’ve sorted this all out, she has to be fine.
The sound of gunshots grabs her attention. She looks up to see an array of bullets frozen in front of Bob's face. He just looks at them for a few moments, and he flicks them back at Bucky. Walker throws himself in front of him, his shield catching the bullets but sending them both flying backward.
She takes a breath, and it comes out more of a groan. She tries to push herself back to her feet. She can hardly make it to one knee. God, this hurts. But if things continue like this, at least nobody's going to get seriously hurt. Nobody is going to–
Alexei charges forward, a knife in his hand that's pointed right at him.
Her eyes go wide. “Alexei, no!” What is he thinking?
Bob, of course, stops him. He shoots out a hand, and the knife freezes mere inches from it. For a moment, Bob just looks at him, looks at that knife, and he's just… still.
Then he throws Alexei out the window, all without laying a hand on him. Then he drags him back in, throwing him aside without a care in the world. By now, he just looks bored. He throws Alexei aside without an issue. Then he throws Ava aside, and Walker, and Bucky, and through it all, he just looks…
Well, he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. She hopes that rings true.
She pushes herself to her feet, and another quiet groan escapes her lips. Everyone else has had their fun. They've tried it their way. She's going to try it hers.
“Bob,” she says, calmly, as calmly as she can, but she can hear the shakiness in her voice. “Bob, stop it.”
Bob just looks at her for a few moments. He squints slightly, his head cocked to the side, and it almost looks as though he's sizing her up. She hopes she's reading too much into it. She hopes he's not going to try to fight. She's not as delusional as the others to believe that's a fight she might win.
Yelena takes a cautious step toward him, and she can see his defenses build themselves up. It doesn't dissuade her, though maybe it should. She steps toward him again, and again, and again, just as slow, just as careful.
“Bob, listen to me,” she says slowly. “I do not want to hurt you. Please do not hurt me.”
Bob eyes her up and down. He doesn’t look like he's going to strike. He doesn’t look like he trusts her, either.
She takes another step, and she's getting closer now, maybe half a dozen steps away. He grows more wary with each one. She can see it on his face. But she's not trying to hurt him, so he's not going to hurt her.
“This isn't you, Bob,” she says. “Valentina is using you.”
Bob tilts his head to the side, an almost threatening movement. “And you weren't?”
“How could I have?” Yelena asks, and she risks another step forward, almost within an arm’s reach now, though it may be a bad idea, with the way he looks at her when she does it. “I did not know what you were, Bob. I did not know what you could do.
“I did not see you as a weapon,” she continues. “I saw you as a friend; as someone I could trust.”
Bob's gaze softens. It's a small change, but she can see it as clear as day. He's looking more like him; more like the Bob that she knows, the Bob she found herself protecting from the moment she laid eyes on him. He doesn’t need her protection anymore. That much is obvious. But somewhere in there, that gentler side of him is still in there, and it’s begging to come through again.
Valentina isn’t having it. “Don’t listen to her, Robert,” she says. “You can’t trust them, remember? They’re criminals. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
Bob’s gaze flickers toward her. Yelena won’t let that fly. She takes another step toward him and reaches up, cupping his face between her hands. He looks back down at her, and she finds her eyes mere inches from his lips. She tries not to think too much about that. It's not easy.
“Bob, please,” she whispers. “You don't have to listen to her. I won't even ask you to listen to me, but you need to understand that you do not need to listen to her.”
Bob is still; he's silent. His gaze flickers across her face as though trying to read her, and she lets him. She has nothing to hide. Not from him. She has a feeling she couldn't hide anything from him if she tried.
“Robert–” Valentina says.
“Don't.”
She obliges, her words ending just as abruptly as they began. Yelena can't see her reaction. All she can see is Bob, and she doesn't trust herself to look away.
Slowly, very slowly, he brings one hand up, resting it on top of hers and holding her hand to his face. It’s a soft gesture, an intimate one, and she almost feels like melting beneath his touch.
“I wouldn't hurt you,” he says quietly. “Not if I didn't have to.”
Yelena gives him a small, sad smile for that. It’s a nice sentiment, she supposes, but it really depends on what he considers have to to be. If he listens to Valentina, the bar is going to be very low.
“We are here for you, you know,” Yelena tells him. “We came back for you – one last hurrah.” Bucky, of course, is here for Valentina. Alexei is here just because he wants to be on a so-called team. But for the rest of them, the ones who found him in the vault, who fought through hell to get themselves and each other out, they're here for him. They weren't leaving any man behind. (And, of course, the whole superpowered Sentry thing plays a role, but he doesn’t have to know that fear was also a primary motivator for a lot of them.)
“And then what?”
Yelena cocks her head to the side. “I don't understand.”
“What happens after that?” Bob asks. “After the last hurrah?”
Yelena is quiet for a few moments; then, the truth: “I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“No, I don't,” she says. “Most of us will go our separate ways, I guess. We will never have to see each other again. But…” She trails off with a soft sigh.
“But…?” he prompts her. She thinks she sees a look of hope in his eyes. Maybe she's just projecting her own feelings onto him.
“I told you before that you stay with me,” she reminds him. “I meant that, Bob. The offer is still open.” It wasn't an offer at the time. It was an order, more like; a demand to ensure he stayed safe and they all got out of there in one piece. Right now, she's not in a position to make demands. She hopes he’ll listen regardless.
Bob's quiet at first, as he frequently is after she speaks. Something about this Sentry persona seems to have made him more thoughtful, or at least a little less awkward. It's a shame, really. She liked that about him.
But his newfound confidence has its perks, it seems, because, without a word about it, without a warning of any kind, he leans down and captures her lips with his own.
Yelena does her best to stifle her gasp, and, for a moment, she doesn't know what to do. But it comes to her pretty quickly, and it's not long before she's kissing him, too, their lips moving in sync as though they were made for this, destined for this.
Bob takes his hand from hers, and she soon finds his arms wrapped around her waist. Her hands stay right where they are, gently cupping his face and feeling every small movement of his jaw against her palm.
Their kiss slows to a stop, but Bob doesn't let her go, doesn't let her move away. He rests his forehead against hers, and she finds herself smiling softly.
“Is that a ‘yes’?” she asks quietly, and a hint of amusement shines through in her voice.
“It's a ‘yes,’” he assures her.
She huffs a shaky laugh and moves closer, completely closing the gap between them. She rests her head against his chest, and he holds her against him. It’s not overly comfortable – she blames the costume; the metal belt is definitely not helping – but she relishes it anyway.
She’s kind of known, somehow, since that first time they met, that he was special. There was something about him that fascinated her, in a way nobody else ever had before. She hadn’t thought too much of it, so focused on trying to keep him safe, trying to keep them all alive, but now, it couldn’t be more obvious what that feeling was.
It was love at first sight.
Until mere seconds ago, she wouldn’t have even believed in it, but now, it’s undeniable that–
“Yelena, you are not lesbian?”
Yelena pulls away from Bob and whips around, gaping at her father open-mouthed. “What?” Is he serious? What kind of question is that? And why in the world is that his first thought right now?
“I thought you were lesbian!” Alexei repeats, and he sounds absolutely baffled by this turn of events. She feels the same way, for very different reasons.
Ava raises her hand. “For what it’s worth, I also thought you were gay. You do not look like a straight woman at all.”
Yelena scoffs. What the hell?
John steps in to defend her – just, not how she would have liked to be defended, because he says, “Guys, come on. Stop speculating about her sexuality. We don’t know if she’s straight or gay; she could be bisexual–”
“Walker,” Ava interrupts, “you spent way too much time online.”
Yelena looks around the room, dumbfounded, her thoughts completely devoid of words because everything about what’s happening right now is absolutely terrible (except for Bob, who, despite his poorly targeted powers and his new bleach-blond hair, will never be terrible.)
“That’s enough,” Bucky says, loudly, monotonously, and somehow, he really is able to shut everyone up. He’s done an impressive job ignoring the ridiculous shenanigans around him, and his gaze is focused solely on Valentina when he says, “You’re done. We have the proof. We have witnesses. It’s over, Valentina."
Valentina’s gaze scans the room, eyeing each and every person in it in a fruitless search for escape, until finally, she settles on the obvious. “Robert–”
“It’s Bob,” he interrupts. “And he’s right… Whoever he is.” He looks over at Bucky. “Who are you?”
Yelena rests a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll fill you in later.”
He smiles at that, a small, soft smile, and everything just feels lighter. He puts an arm around her, and she steps in so she can lean against him, her head resting against his shoulder because he’s so goddamn tall.
Everything is wrapped up in a nice little bow. Bucky gets to take Valentina in, now with some additional crimes on the ledger. So she’s off to prison, Bucky is off to speak to the press (who have since gathered outside in droves, just as Valentina had wanted, though this doubtlessly isn’t how she expected it to end.) The team all goes their separate ways, though not before exchanging phone numbers “just in case” – and Yelena will not be surprised to see Walker send out a group text asking if they want to meet up for lunch in a few days.
And then there were two.
(Well, okay, she has to get Alexei out of the way first, which is always a hell of an experience, but she does manage.)
And then there were two.
Yelena and Bob go on their way, then, off to a cheap motel outside of New York City where they can lay low for the night. The room is small and cramped. The queen-sized bed looks a little too small to qualify as a queen. One of the lights in the entryway doesn’t work. But there’s a roof over their heads, a mattress to sleep on, and a family sized bag of Doritos in Bob’s hand for them to share, and that’s good enough for them.
That’s how they end up sitting cross-legged next to each other on the bed, that Dorito bag resting between them so they can munch while some stupid hospital drama plays on the TV. It’s quiet for a while, with only the occasional comment, usually about the show, and the crunching of their chips. She doesn’t mind the silence too much. She doesn’t have much to say, anyway.
It’s during the third or fourth commercial break when Bob looks over at her and says, “I’m sorry about all of this.”
She looks over at him, too, her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“This was all my fault,” he says. “I let Valentina get in my head, and I hurt you guys for her.”
Yelena shakes her head, and she rests a hand on his leg. “Bob, the first thing you did when we met was risk your life to get us out of there safely.”
Bob shrugs sheepishly. “Well, then I beat up your friends.”
“They attacked you first,” Yelena reminds him. “Valentina wanted you to kill us, and you didn’t. That’s what matters to me.” She gives his leg a gentle squeeze. “You’re a good person, Bob.”
A red hue overtakes his face and he looks down at his lap, but she can still see the faint smile on his lips. “Well, I wouldn’t say that…”
“But it’s true,” Yelena says. “You are a good person, and I am lucky to know you.” With a lighthearted smile, she adds, “I would even say meeting you was worth almost being incinerated by my ex-boss.”
Bob huffs a quiet laugh. “Oh, thanks,” he says, and he does sound genuinely appreciative, even if his amusement still shows in his tone. “Meeting you was also worth almost being incinerated and then shot a bunch of times.”
Yelenna huffs a laugh, too. She slides closer until they’re right next to each other, and she rests her head against his shoulder. He makes a really nice pillow. “Is now a bad time to ask what we are?”
Bob shrugs, which she knows because she can feel his shoulder move against her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what we are or you don’t know if now is a bad time?”
There’s a pause; then, “Both?”
She cracks a smile at that. “But we are something, right?”
“Um… I would like to be?” Bob says uncertainly. “If you want to be something? I know I just kind of, you know, kissed you out of nowhere, so if you don’t want to be something, I completely understand–”
“Bob, I would love to be something,” Yelena assures him.
“Oh, yay!” His eyes light up at that. “Does that mean I can kiss you again?”
She bounces her eyebrows. “Get these chips off the bed and I’ll let you do more than just kiss me.”
Needless to say, the chips spend the night on the hotel floor. Bob and Yelena, on the other hand…
Well, it’s nice to be free. They’re going to make the most of it.